Hi guys! Back again for the penultimate time... Yes, Saskia, nagging occasionally works even better than you think.
Thanks to you all for sticking with me thus far, and for telling me what you think. I was fully expecting that this post would be more controversial than some others, because I'm very well aware that, with Martha, I'm perhaps treading on the borders of what might be acceptable characterisation for her or for Clark. And the responses illustrate exactly that - some people think I've gone too far:
Clark was his typical wishy washy self. He couldn't even keep his righteous anger with his mother. Instead he allows her to placate him with cornbread, and answers shrouded in BS, half truths and mis-directions. I didn't expect Clark to get nasty with his mother, but she really did step over the line this time.
That was Tank. And Gerry agreed:
I may be one of the few here, but I thought Clark was a bit of a wuss with his mother. He has every right to be angry with her, and I believe that she may have had the best intentions when she spoke to Lois, but we know where some of the best intentions can lead to.
Then she's so know-it-all proving Clark wrong. It might not have worked at all.
I guess what I'm saying is that Martha was not right in this case. She could have messed up the whole relationship with Lois and Clark (who usually do well enough on their own to mess up the relationship).
I believe that she owes them a big apology. None of this cornbread right out of the oven (or even a pie). I think she needs to realize that even when things work out, she has no right to meddle.
Yup, Gerry, you were pretty mad at Martha! Mind you, in Martha's defence I might suggest that you should rather be mad at me instead.
And then there was Missy:
I also thought Martha was a bit too smug in wiggling out of her interference. Even though she had all the best intentions, it could have gone so wrong.
and Kathy:
But alas, I'm in the camp that wanted Clark to wipe the smug look off Martha's face ... she was just entirely too pleased with herself when Clark was clearly very upset about the whole situation. She's making a lot of assumptions that Clark is misinterpreting Lois's reactions -- it seems to me that, since she wasn't on the date, she would take Clark's word for it that Lois was offended that he would try to romance her when he supposedly was interested in someone else. I would have prefered to have her fret about her plan backfiring, then talk things through with Clark to bring him (them both) to the realization that maybe the plan worked after all.
You all make a number of good points, and actually, I like Kathy's suggestion, though I don't think I'll make any changes to the story now. (It's gone for GEing, apart from anything else - the pressure of end-of-year deadlines, apart from whether I could actually work a scene like that in).
But then, there are others who don't have a problem with either Martha or Clark; for instance, Roger said:
For this part, Martha was her usual voice of reason. While she tiptoes and parses words, she manages to make Clark realize just what Lois was saying and putting things into the proper perspective. She gives him hope.
True... and I like the way you trace her reasoning through, too, Roger!
Barb said:
I am a real fan of Martha's, and you gave her such perfectly great things to say and in just the right way.
Aww! Thank you! And Pam said:
Well, in the absence of a Kryptonite-coated Clue Bat (tm), Martha works pretty well to get a few things jammed into Clark's head...
And hey! Even CC agrees! Must have done something right if CC agrees...
I don't have any real grief with Martha. The opposite, as a matter of fact. I feel like she's the one "smart" character.
Though of course CC has concerns with Lois and Clark - I won't comment on that other than to say that I agree with Kathy there.
But I'm certainly not saying that anyone who thought that Martha had overstepped the mark or that Clark should have given her more grief for it is wrong - absolutely not! It's a perfectly valid interpretation of the characters, and I knew I'd get this reaction from at least some readers (I'm just glad it's not from all of you! <g>).
The way I saw it is like this: Martha knows Clark very well. She also had Lois summed up the very first time Lois came to Smallville. She was very sure that Lois was more interested in Clark than she pretended, and I can only imagine that M&J's trip to Metropolis in The Source would have reinforced that impression. Therefore, for Martha, it was only a question of giving Lois something to think about, of engineering some way in which she was forced to confront her feelings. As Roger says, Martha never actually said that Clark's mystery love was someone else - Lois just assumed it.
It's amazing what some people will delude themselves into believing. Martha basically came out and gave Lois all the answers. She in turn made up a love interest for Clark, failing to recognize she fit all the parameters. Then she misses all the clues Clark dropped for his perfect woman. /me thwaps Lois with a 2x4
My interpretation is that Martha would never have done it if she hadn't already known how Lois would react - and from there it was just a matter of waiting until either the penny dropped or Lois decided to fight for her man.
Speaking of Lois fighting for her man, this seems a fairly typical view:
I have mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, WHOOHOO! They're going to talk it out and start smooching in the next part. On the other hand, it would have been fun, too, to watch Lois grilling everybody in sight for clues to who Clark's mystery love is. And maybe somebody at the Planet would thwap her over the head by telling her that everybody else already knew what she couldn't see.
Yup, I was getting this impression from the comments to Part 8 as well. Actually, originally I had the idea that this might be a longer story, that it might take some time for the penny to drop and that Lois might actually start trying to entice Clark away from the mystery woman while at the same time he would be working up the courage to ask her out. But then, as sometimes happened, the characters sort of went their own way during the date and when Clark took Lois home, and once that happened it seemed to me that the misunderstanding simply couldn't be allowed to drag out. Clark would, of course, talk to Martha, and having talked to her he would want to see Lois and get things straightened out.
Hence ten parts instead of the 40 or so I've been known to run to in the past!!
Anyway, enough rambling on... Part 10 coming up very soon! After all, how could I possibly delay any more:
:-p ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ /me refuses to say more until she sees the next part!!
AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!
/me runs from a vengeful Kaethel...Thanks again for all your comments.
Wendy
